Saddam Hussein, Iraq, and the Road to the Invasion of Kuwait In the summer of 1990, the Middle East stood on the edge of a crisis few expected to become one of the defining conflicts of the new post-Cold War era. Iraq and Kuwait were neighboring Arab countries whose populations were overwhelmingly Muslim, and Kuwait had supported Iraq financially during Iraq's long war against Iran. Yet within weeks, Iraqi tanks would cross the Kuwaiti border, Kuwait would be occupied, and Mu

My Name is Mikhail Gorbachev: President of the Soviet Union I was born in 1931 in the village of Privolnoye in southern Russia. My family lived close to the soil, working on collective farms during some of the Soviet Union's hardest years. I witnessed hunger, government repression, and then the terrible destruction of the Second World War. German forces occupied our region for several months. These experiences taught me that great political ideas mean little if ordinary peopl

The Soviet Union in Crisis: An Empire Coming Apart By 1990, one of the most powerful nations in history was beginning to come apart from within. For decades, the Soviet Union had competed with the United States across the globe, commanded enormous armed forces, controlled thousands of nuclear weapons, and dominated much of Eastern Europe. Yet behind this appearance of strength, the Soviet system faced economic shortages, political unrest, ethnic tensions, and growing demands

My Name is Ronald Reagan: President of the United States I was born on February 6, 1911, in Tampico, Illinois, and grew up in the small towns of the American Midwest. My father, Jack, was a salesman, and my mother, Nelle, taught me that faith, perseverance, and kindness mattered greatly. We were not wealthy, and my father's struggles with alcohol sometimes made life difficult, but I learned early that America was a place where a person's beginning did not have to determine hi

Reagan and the Return to Cold War Confrontation (1981–1984) When Ronald Reagan entered the White House in January 1981, relations between the United States and Soviet Union had already deteriorated following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and other international crises. Reagan believed the United States needed to strengthen its military position while challenging Soviet influence more directly. Over the next several years, military buildups, nuclear missiles, fiery speech

My Name is Leonid Brezhnev: Leader of the Soviet Union I was born in 1906 in Kamenskoye, an industrial city in the Russian Empire, into a working family. I did not come from palaces or aristocracy. I studied engineering, worked among laborers, and joined the Communist Party. The Soviet system gave men like me an opportunity to rise through work, discipline, and loyalty. I believed that our country had paid an enormous price to build socialism, and I would spend my life defend

Détente: Can Cold War Enemies Learn to Live Together? By the end of the 1960s, the United States and Soviet Union had spent more than two decades confronting one another across the globe. They had built enormous nuclear arsenals, supported opposing governments, competed for influence, and survived crises that sometimes brought the world frighteningly close to nuclear war. Yet something unexpected began to happen. Instead of preparing for the next confrontation, leaders in Was

My Name is David Ben-Gurion: Israel and the Search for Security I was born David Grün in 1886 in Płońsk, then part of the Russian Empire. From my youth, I believed that the Jewish people could not depend forever upon the tolerance of others for their safety. Across Europe, Jews had endured discrimination, persecution, and violence. My father was active in the Zionist movement, and I came to believe that our people needed more than promises of protection. We needed a homeland

Israel, the Arab States, and the Cold War Comes to the Middle East (1948–1955) When Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, the Middle East entered a new and turbulent era. The creation of Israel followed decades of growing Jewish immigration to Palestine, Arab opposition to Zionism, British rule under the Palestine Mandate, and the horrors of the Holocaust, which intensified international support for a Jewish homeland. The United Nations had proposed dividing Palestine

My Name is Kwame Nkrumah: Ghanaian Independence Leader and Pan-Africanist I was born in 1909 in Nkroful, in the British colony known as the Gold Coast. I came into a world in which Africans lived upon African soil but did not possess full control over their own political destiny. Britain governed our colony, European companies participated heavily in our economy, and decisions affecting our future could be made thousands of miles away. I became convinced that this arrangement